I. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method for providing a planning framework for use to solve planning problems.
II. Background Information
Typically, in a planning strategy, for instance for managing a supply chain or workflow or the like, a number of planning activities need to be scheduled in order to arrive a valid planning strategy. Aspects of such validity comprise the absence of planning activities that occur in the past, the absence of double bookings of planned resources, like production machines or the like, and, although potentially less important, the optimal timely use of resources and the meeting of required deadlines in a planning project.
The conventional computer assisted planning methods generally use for these aspects a generic time schedule, wherein planning activities are allocated a planning status according to a predefined planning strategy, more in particular, a particular scheduling algorithm that complies with the constraints that the particular planning is bound to for a particular project in the supply chain. In this respect, the major enterprises where planning plays a crucial role in the production and manufacturing of goods, which encompasses almost all branches of the industry, use IT-systems such as for example supply chain management systems developed by SAP AG. A recurring task that these IT-system need provide support for is the planning of projects, for example, multifold use of production systems, logistic planning in transport systems, cross docking etc. For these day to day planning problems, simplified and generic planning support systems are developed and integrated in IT-systems, wherein optimization schemes are used and (often non-optimized) heuristic planning schemes that offer a fast and reliable rule of thumb planning strategy.
These planning support systems often use a particular planning strategy that is fixed according to a planning model discussed in literature. For the most part, a central part of the planning problem is solved in praxis, however, important context specific details are often missed since these are not accounted for in such generic systems. This causes that important constraints of the particular planning project are missed or not sufficiently accounted for. For the multitude of business specific planning requirements, hitherto it has been very hard to develop a planning method for use in a computer system, that is configured to comply with all these business specific requirements. Furthermore, the detailed and specific development of such specialized applications is very cost intensive and economically unattractive.
The invention has as one of its objects to comply with the above problems and provide a framework that is arranged to be flexibly adapted according to certain (business) specific planning requirements. On the other hand, the invention has as an object to provide a framework that has a generic character to be able to flexibly comply with varying demands.
To this end, the invention provides a method according to the features of claim 1. By providing a first software layer (data layer) for storing and manipulating planning data relative to the planning project; and providing a second software layer (application layer) for communicating with the first software layer, the second layer arranged for preparing a predetermined planning method, the invention embodies a framework for handling multilevel planning problems, so to say, by a multilayered approach in handling these plannings.
By such a framework, the invention is able to offer an environment where a planning algorithm is executed on multiple layers, wherein generic modules can be executed as fast modules in an environment (data layer) that is highly optimized in terms of load on time and system resources. The specifically adapted modules that are embodying a particular planning strategy can be arranged as directing modules that can operate on a layer that need to be less optimized but is highly flexible (application layer). By such a multilayered framework a simple and flexible approach is made possible in solving business specific planning problems. This also provides an approach that is far more efficient and less time-consuming in developing new or adapted planning support systems than the conventional systems.